Illinois Public Media

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Illinois Public Media

Regulators Close Broadway Bank, 3 Other IL Banks

April 23, 2010

Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias is mourning the collapse of his father's bank while trying not to let it hobble his campaign.

It's a familiar Friday afternoon ritual - federal regulators closing community banks. This week, seven more were taken over. One of them was a bit out of the ordinary. The unraveling of Broadway Bank has become one of the central issues in the fight for President Barack Obama's former Senate seat. Republican Mark Kirk has hammered Giannoulias over his role at the bank when bad loans were made. Giannoulias places most of the blame elsewhere.

"Wall Street greed coupled with lax oversight by Washington politicians led to a deep recession that leveled a crippling blow to the real estate market," said Giannoulias

Giannoulias says he does accept responsibility for the delinquent loans booked while he was a senior loan officer at the bank. He says they number less than 9% of the bank's bad loans overall. Chicago-based MB Financial Bank is taking over Broadway Bank.

Besides Broadway Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. also took control of New Century Bank of Chicago, Citizens Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago and Amcore Bank of Rockford. The agency found institutions to assume the assets of all four banks, which will reopen Saturday. Deposits at all four banks will continue to be insured by the FDIC.